


Ghost In The Machine

by notyourleo



Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: Angry Norman Jayden, Character Study, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hallucinations, Insanity, Introspection, No Romance, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 13:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8534563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourleo/pseuds/notyourleo
Summary: The fall from grace is steep and swift, and when you land, you do not make a sound.





	

**GHOST IN THE MACHINE**

Jayden’s throat went dry when the man entered his office. No mistake, despite the dark blueish hue of his abode. The building never closed, the Bureau operated twenty-four-seven, but he liked to pretend his co-workers had packed and left for the day, he liked the illusion of being alone in the world, it helped him concentrate on his work. But there was no mistake that his eyes were seeing a solid figure too familiar. A wave of fear and loathing washed over him.

Carter Blake crossed the room with a stride and open arms that invited an embrace, a huge, ironic grin plastered across his face. “I would have guessed you be here.”

Jayden shifted in his seat and leaned back. The memories of _that_ investigation came rushing back. The anger from less than a year ago—anger that had gathered dust on the bottom of his heart—bubbled in his chest. Not tonight, not now, when he was still recuperating from the unavoidable damage he inflicted on his poor health. “Blake,” he said curtly.

Blake took a mocking step back. “What? Not happy to see me?” He let out a low chuckle. “I’m hurt.” He started surveying his office, moving into its darker corners.

What was Jayden supposed to say? _Why the hell are you here? Get out of my office?_ He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”

Blake turned to him, arms once again open, but Christ-like this time. “I work here now.”

“Since when? And how?”

He tilted his head left and right as if the answer was rolling around his brain. “I start today. I got in just like everyone here does, applied a few months ago.”

“That’s impossible,” Jayden quipped, far too quickly he overlapped the tail of Blake’s sentence. “It takes longer than that. Getting into the FBI is a challenging and rigorous process. A _few_ months isn’t going to cut you in here.” His attitude wasn’t necessary, but Jayden was overprotective over his line of work. This and the state district was home. And home was the only thing he had. It took him years of hard work and sacrifice to get him this far, left everything behind him, to get where he was now made him feel like he deserved to keep his job to himself and only to himself. Blake just made a few leaps and skips and he was rubbing it on his face. And with him here in the room, Jayden’s sense of space had been violated.

“Well.” An impatient huff from Blake. “Maybe I pulled a couple of ropes to land this job. _Or_ , maybe because I’m capable of what I do. Either way, you’re going to be stuck with me.”

Jayden entertained himself with fantasies of corruption, imagined what strings Blake pulled to get him here. But there was no way in hell the FBI would let that happen. There was no way they were going to let this bastard in. Goddamn, he was too _old_ to join the agency, to begin with.

His former partner paced around the room, with a coat over one arm and holding a folder in another—his contract for the job. He stood and walked on his toes. But Jayden could never forget his psychopathic tendencies, his bursts of violence, and how he turned everything into something deeply personal. And even in his most serene state, his _friend_ diffused an ominous aura that Jayden did not want to be around with. His throat became drier.

“I’ll be right back.” He stood from his chair, got out of his office, and made a beeline for the nearest water cooler.

##

Carter Blake was coupled in with every case assigned to Jayden. Like a bundle, the man himself would deliver the folder of files to his office. Whenever Jayden went, Blake must follow. He shadowed and he haunted every step of the way.

In his observations, though, Blake was uncharacteristically calm and collective in the cases they tackled. Many of them weren’t high-profile cases, like the one they first worked on together. They flew to different parts of the country, where Blake didn’t know anyone and anyone didn’t know him. Not like Philadelphia, where he held personal grudges on every criminal he came across with. Still, Jayden feared that one day he was going to break out and attack everything and everyone on sight. So he kept himself on the move, alert.

It was a sad reflection on Jayden’s part that he associated Blake’s anger as being a part of him, undeniably, as opposed to something that happened under fire, like not having grace under pressure. Jayden knew that during the Origami Killer case Blake’s heart was in the right place, regardless of the flaws and mistakes. He knew that, despite bashing heads frequently with him physically and mentally, that Blake wanted to find Shaun Mars and catch the Origami Killer as much as he did. Although his methods of approach were questionable. Along with Captain Perry, their true motives were clouded, as they were ready to announce to the press that they had cuffed the killer, even though the culprit wasn’t caught, even though they weren’t even _sure_ that Ethan Mars was the culprit. Clearly, they wanted to gain something from this. Fame and glory over the newspapers, that was what.

The times were different now. It wasn’t right for Jayden to compress Blake into a two-dimensional, glory-seeking bastard who was just full of suppressed anger, ready to let it out to the nearest person he found fault on. It wasn’t right to label and classify him after clashing against each other. After all, the human psyche is a vast mysterious place. People liked to think that they knew themselves very well after a considerable amount of time of reflection and experience, but that wasn’t always true. Something always lurked in their subconsciousness, and one day it was going to take over and reinvent that person completely.

Still, this Carter Blake—reasonable and smart—made him uneasy.

##

Jayden reflected upon himself on the first day Blake came to his office. He was curt, guarded, almost angry. He dug a grave for them after the investigation, and yet those feelings resurfaced the first time his face appeared at the doorway. Back in Philadelphia, when they were wrapping up the case and getting the paperwork done, he had forgiven Blake. He had forgiven everyone who had doubted him, who was an obstacle to the case. He had forgiven Scott Shelby for his crimes. Forgiving was one way for him to heal, especially at this point he was juggling the idea that he might not live longer. He had let that anger go a long time ago, but it came back.

People changed over the time and Jayden liked to joke to himself that maybe Blake sought out professional help for his anger mismanagement. Despite their past disputes, he was giving him a chance. Through their constant partnership, he was going to get to know and understand Blake. And as the months went by and the cases they take and finish flew past them, they could work well together, even exchanged a couple of drinks sometimes, however Jayden had no intentions on becoming friends with him. Just colleagues, nothing more.

Sometimes Blake unwillingly brought Jayden back to the days of elementary school. He reminded him of the schoolyard bullies, always picking and taking something from the weak kids such as himself, always marking their territory by taking a piss anywhere they wanted, the slides, the seesaws, the sandbox, and the stench would stay for days until the rain came to wash it all away.

Jayden was astounded such people do exist. He remembered his anger and frustration whenever these big tough kids pushed him around, took his toys, robbed him of his lunches, caked him with their dirt and piss. He resolved to be better than all of them, to be rich and famous and successful. He’d be on TV one day, and all his friends and enemies from elementary school to university would recognize him. They’d be proud to have known him personally in the past. They would try to ride on his fame because they needed it.

That was how Jayden felt. By prancing around his office, Blake was taking something away from him.

##

Blake and Jayden flew to Brazil to take on a case of an American tourist kidnapped by radical locals for ransom from the United States. They interrogated a man—small, thin, and average but with piercing eyes—who was an accidental accessory to the crime, and yet the man wouldn’t cooperate with them. With patience running thin and time running out, Blake grabbed the man’s collar and started screaming at his face. Jayden quickly sprung to his feet, but prying his partner away from the man was a task easily said than done. His partner grabbed the man’s face with one hand and squeezed it together while he continued to bellow. The man’s lips dripped blood.

“That’s enough!” Jayden yelled. He suddenly recalled the countless times he had to say those two words to him and it made his parched, weak lungs more wrinkled. He knew that reasoning with him wouldn’t work. He got in between them, pushing Blake against the wall with all his strength, while the man cowered away. When Jayden had his partner pinned and under control, it was his turn to scream at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Blake chuckled and rested his hands on Jayden’s outstretched arms. Then he bashed his face with his forehead.

Normally, blows like these wouldn’t faze him, not one bit. He was supposed to be made of steel, and it was all part of his training. But his weak body had taken a toll for the months that passed, and Jayden staggered back and let him go. Blake pushed him aside. Jayden fell down on the ground. His vision blurred and blackened. Time slowed down and he caught glimpse of the man pressed against the corner of the room, shivering in fear as Blake descended upon him. The black and white striped shirt the man wore that day reminded Jayden of a zebra. An injured, helpless zebra.

Jayden didn’t know how long he was out. By the time he got back to his senses, Blake was grinning triumphantly. They got a confession out of the man.

##

Similar incidents happened in the following cases, although not on every one of them, and now Jayden debated whether he should keep his mouth shut for a while and figure out who Carter Blake really was, or report him to his superiors. At this point, they should have grown suspicious of his actions during the cases, even without Jayden telling them about it. They must be turning a blind eye over him, and it made Jayden furious. Fury wouldn’t help, though, fury would only make him age. He calmed himself down.

Word got around that an agent passed away. The official report was that he died during a high-profile case. The cause of death had not been released to the public. But Jayden knew. Every agent who used ARI knew. No words needed to be exchanged, passing glances among themselves were more than enough to get their concerns across. They let the cover story tide over them.

Some agents were in danger of being retired due to their declining health and reports that ARI was causing it. More updated versions of the device and less lethal dosages of triptocaine were being manufactured, but these agents were being taken out of their work. Jayden didn’t want to be one of them. He had to tell them that yes maybe he was seeing things here and there, a waterfall to his left, sand on the palm of his hand, but not as much like those severe cases. Not like the world was changing around him.

“Are you sure?” The doctor in charge of him asked in his recent check-up.

Jayden tapped his knee with his fingers. “Yes,” he said rather exasperatedly. The doctor’s face scrunched up into a more worrying look. Jayden seized his tapping. Along with his health, his professionalism started to seep out of him. Not good. Not good at all.

##

His deepest instincts told him to be away from Blake. He didn’t want to go on a case with him. He wanted to just sit in his office and work, while he was on his ARI glasses and while he wasn’t on his ARI glasses. He started to prefer paperwork than field work. Anything just so he wouldn’t be around him.

Not that Blake returned from being a complete psychopathic asshole. Back in Philadelphia, he wasn’t like that in his waking life, as far as he knew. He spoke to women and children more softly. He helped a disabled officer when the need for assistance arose, sparing them of their dignity and not having them question their independence. Then and now he was ruthlessly dedicated to solving the cases he was assigned it, never losing sight of the end goal. _Almost_ never losing sight of it.

And Jayden? Jayden was tough enough to bring down big guys. If Blake became a threat, he could bring him down. Not easily, not without a fight, but he could bring him down.

This rather irrational fear of Carter Blake puzzled him, and he wished to explore it like he always did whenever a peculiar case of obstruction somehow disrupts his movements, his quaint everyday life. But the only thing that impeded him to doing so was because of the same fear. He feared that he wasn’t seeing some aspect of Blake that he should be seeing. He wasn’t ready to face those fears yet unless he knew Carter Blake. In short, Norman Jayden was stuck in a vicious circle and he needed to break free from it.

Until then, keep the lights down, pretend the whole world didn’t exist outside the door.

Lock the door, always.

##

His first case abroad without Blake was in India.

He embraced the country. The food, the Bollywood movies and their equally hilarious TV counterparts, the crime-riddled streets, where homeless children were often found playing without any care. He wasn’t distracted by these during the investigation. No, it improved his work and his clarity of the world.

He loved his meagre quarters and the clothes he wore so he wouldn’t attract attention from thieves (although being white didn’t help already), and if his work demanded him to look professional, he underdressed. He was stripped of his privileges, like his car and his vodka. He’d resort to public transport all of the time, get chauffeured to his destinations, or—if needed to be—he’d rent one.

He enjoyed speaking and drinking with his translator, his partner, in this case, Amir, born here but was raised in the States. Here was a man who experienced two worlds all his life, ARI didn’t need to interfere or assist him, but living life in diaspora brought the same pains and tribulations of a man being torn apart by two entirely different realities, and it overlapped often. It overlapped in him.

Jayden used ARI less when he was here. Good. It helped his recovery. But some nights he would go to bed and all of a sudden he would be in the middle of the desert, on his left the ancient city of Varanashi, and to his right an incoming sandstorm racing towards his way. Even though he was used to all these visions now, he still reached for his glasses from his face, despite being aware that they were not there at all. Out of habit, he supposed.

He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, slowly.

##

Jayden and Amir were not the only ones tackling their case. They met and worked with several FBI agents in the duration of their stay. They talked about the responsibility that rested heavily on their shoulders, weighing them down more than they were comfortable with. They spoke vaguely of their mission, even when the locals weren’t around, but the meaning was clear and concise. The national security of the United States had been severely breached, and the trail led back to India. With the collaboration of India’s government and the IB, they were here to put an end to the terrorist organization and their leader—known only as Magnus, as much as their current information entailed them—and have a patch work done. The assignment could take them months, maybe even years, for results to unfold. But here they were.

Their investigation brought them to hunting down one of the most cunning men in the country, Sohrab Chauhan, a close friend of Magnus. He had recently escaped a maximum security prison and despite his most impeccable mind, it was reported that his mental health was deteriorating. Dementia was slowly settling in, so sporadic acts of insanity were apparent to his current state.

The search had brought Jayden to the city’s sewage system. The smell had hit him hard and he fought the reflex to vomit. After breathing deeply against his dress shirt to help adjust to the odour, he brandished ARI from his pockets and started a scan with the glove component. The footsteps of the escaped man revealed itself in yellowish glow. The sewage system was a maze, and it connected several government buildings—including the precinct—together, acted like a war bunker.

The trail led him to a small campsite in the network of tunnels, emerging from the stink into the entrance of a dead forest. A lone streetlight shined down on the shambles that a man called his home, his refuge. A battered tent, a small fireplace, several boxes of expired goods stacked around the site like crumbled walls. An unfinished road cutting through the forest, which explained the strategic location of the streetlight.

Jayden inspected every single item of interest in the place, to get a good understanding of the man they needed to find. And from his findings he learned he was a man from a broken family, orphaned at a young age, schooled briefly, and was adopted and trained by a group of mercenaries. His knowledge and critical thinking were nurtured by a number of books he read in his childhood and years of self-teaching. Jayden could learn so much from the way this person held and handled his belongings, could tell which tiny little trinkets were treasures to him, and how close it was near his pillows, his heart

“Really? Wearing sunglasses in the dark?”

Jayden’s heart stopped. He turned, and Carter Blake stood there, with a side smirk. He strode to him casually, just like when he did in the first day they met in his office.

Jayden violently took the glasses off, and Blake was gone. Instead, he saw the man he was supposed to find, holding on to another box of goods. Chauhan’s eyes were wild with rage and also fear. He dropped his goods and made a sprint back into the tunnels. He was barefoot.

Jayden got himself ready for the chase when the tremors hit every nerve in his body. He gasped for air as if he was emerging from underwater after a long time holding his breath. He leaned against the wall of boxes and slid down, pale and shaking uncontrollably. He threw down his tie and undid the top buttons of his shirt as if it would help him breathe better. He clutched his left hand—which held the ARI—with his right and rocked back and forth, riding his tremors away. He gripped his glasses tightly, almost breaking it in half.

##

Jayden refused to stop looking. He refused to sit, to sleep, to dream. He expressed regret to his partner for having let Chauhan escape, for being so close yet he _didn’t_ get him. But Amir understood. He really did.

Jayden didn’t change from his dirt and sewage-covered clothes, and he didn’t care what his colleagues think or smell. He was here to right what went wrong. All day, the city police went to the areas where the man could have likely escaped to. They partnered with other FBI agents who happened to be in the city. The local reporters broke the news to the media. The people were now awake and alert.

By nightfall, the suspect was spotted nearby a zoo. Jayden and the captain of the district’s nearest police station were first on the scene and in a few minutes, they were joined by several police officers and Amir. This time, Jayden didn’t lose sight of the criminal. Chauhan was a big, dark man leaving a path of destruction. They managed to chase him into the zoo, where he woke the sleeping animals and the children who decided that tonight they were going to sleep here, with their makeshift blankets and cardboard as beds.

Through unfortunate circumstances, Chauhan grabbed one of the kids while dashing away to a dead end. The little girl screamed in his arms, almost in harmony with the howling orangutans around them. Once he was surrounded and he had no other way of escape, he pulled a handgun from his back pocket, and he pointed it at the girl’s head. “Come closer and I will shoot!”

Jayden drew his gun out of reflex. The rest followed his example.

Chauhan laughed. “Look at that. America comes and saves the day. As always, eh? But now you are now at my mercy.”

“It doesn’t always have to be this way,” Jayden said. “Let the girl go. She doesn’t have to get involved in this.

“Exactly why I need her in between us, my American friend. It is either me or her that goes!

The little girl thrashed against him, her feet dangling above the ground. Her hair was red and wiry and her arms were long and brown. Her innocent eyes shined as the tears rolled down her mudded cheeks.

 _What the hell are you doing standing there?_ Blake’s voice in his head. Memories of an apartment filled with crucifixes flashed in his mind, of a bothered man named Nathaniel pointing a gun towards his partner. _Stop talking and shoot him!_

“Jayden.” Amir stood beside him, his gun out, but hesitant to fulfill its actual purpose of use. “We’ve got the act. Quickly.”

“Drop the gun, Chauhan,” Jayden’s voice was steady but it only took him as much to keep his nerves from breaking loose. “There isn’t any option you can choose. You’re surrounded and outgunned.”

“Agent, I implore you do not shoot him.” The captain said to him. “We need him. He has vital information that would greatly serve your case. He may be the only person in our capacity to help us. Negotiate with him, if you must.”

Chauhan pushed the barrel of the gun harder on the girl’s head. “No negotiations. It is a now or never situation, Mr. America! There may not be an option for me, but you do. You shoot me now, or you let me go and the girl lives! But whatever you want with me, dies with me.” She was biting on the man’s arm, drawing blood from his veins, but he wasn’t flinching at all. He was all solely focused on Jayden. “Why are you so concerned for the life of a street urchin? She’s nothing here. A bullet to her brain will simply end her pain. She would be spared from years of misery. No one will miss her!”

The nearest orangutan behind Chauhan stretched their arms out of their cage and grabbed him by his collar. It screeched against his ear. The man struggled away and shot the animal. The girl screamed in pure terror, a sound that rattled their hearts and guts.

“Jesus fucking Christ, _Jayden_.” Amir’s voice was pleading. “He’ll kill the kid.”

“Buy us some time, agent.” The captain insisted. “More help is on the way.”

“Magnus has no need for you anymore.” Jayden pressed on, shaken and torn apart by the sound of the gunshot, but he stitched himself together at once. “It’s not worth the effort to keep fighting for him when he dispensed you and sold you to us. Your loyalty is nothing to him now.”

Chauhan sneered. “Well, congratulations, Mr. America, for decoding the puzzle of my psychological insecurities. And here’s the thing: there is no more time to buy.” Finger on the trigger.

“This is your last warning, surrender and we will not hesitate to shoot!” Jayden shouted. This wasn’t about the suspect anymore, this was about the girl. He inched closer and pulled down the hammer of his gun.

“You don’t have the guts for it.” He was going to pull—

_What the hell are you waiting for, Norman!_

“Agent, do not shoot!”

“JAYDEN!”

_SHOOT!_

Norman Jayden fired. It pierced through Chauhan’s hand. His own gun misfired in his grip and managed to shoot the little girl. He dropped the weapon and the girl, reducing himself into blood and screams. The police rushed to seize the convicted criminal. Amir and another agent went towards the child. In all of this, Jayden lost himself in the blur. He dropped to his knees and stared into oblivion. The adrenaline left him quickly instead of letting it slow down in him, and this must be what it felt like to have your soul leave the body, because, at that moment, he never wanted to wake up.

“It’s alright.” Amir’s voice in the midst of the chaos and frenzied hollers of the orangutans around them. “She’s okay. She’ll be okay.”

 _Oh, thank God_. He placed his gun to the side and covered his face.

##

Jayden’s life was not grounded by rituals or repetitions, and that was what he enjoyed about his job. The thrill of the challenge and excitement kept him alive. Only when he got out of his bed did he realize that his crooked bones under layers of tired muscles were cells trying to sway him to do a glimpse of what was ordinary, like waking up at three in the morning. His black cat, Katherine, noticed him move and started to snuggle against his arm. Jayden picked her up and placed her on his lap, scratched her ear and her neck before getting up slowly. She purred and followed him around the apartment.

In the bathroom, he turned the faucet on and splashed his face with water. Through the space of his fingers, Jayden looked at himself in the mirror. With the help of the lamplight above his head, his green eyes seemed to penetrate the glass. He slowly moved his hands down until his fingertips were on his chin. His was paler, his cheeks more hollow. Water clung and dripped down from his eyelashes. He traced his small scar on his right cheek. He lingered on it for long, thinking of its permanence.

He combed his hair back with his fingers before applying a little bit of gel to make each strand hold its place. He put on his clothes on and drove to work. The city was not awake yet, and he liked it this way. He had not been abroad for two months, and for now, he preferred it. The investigation in India had drained more than a dozen FBI agents. Their health dealt a heavy blow, due to the overuse of ARI in the months they were in the case, and the mental strain caused some white hair to appear early. Some had resigned their positions. And those who wished to march forward needed to readjust to the imbalance in their brains as always. Such was the life of a field agent for the FBI.

Once they had Chauhan apprehended that night, the tension slowly unwind. Muscles relaxed, teeth clenching, guns back to their holsters. An ambulance arrived for both him and the little girl. The bullet only grazed her skull and it did not cause any other life-threatening injury. However, she was unconscious. While Jayden watched the ER loading their patients on the stretcher and into the vehicle, the captain went to his side. _“He’s right, though,”_ he said with a sigh. _“No one will miss the girl.”_

Jayden crossed paths with Amir in the elevator. “Hey.” He smiled at him. “How’s it going?”

His friend lightly tapped Jayden’s shoulder with the folder in his hand. “The papers are going well. Once we get the clearance form and the visa, she can come here now. I’ve been talking to her on the phone. She’s excited and couldn’t wait to see America.”

“I hope she won’t be disappointed with what she sees.” Jayden’s floor appeared and he stepped out.

“Your optimism of the case saddens me, Norman. She wants to see America, but I will make America see her.” The elevator door closed between them.

##

He had finished writing the reports and statistics and uploaded it to ARI’s international database when Blake appeared on his side, inside the ARI interface projection.

Jayden jumped and removed his glasses. “JESUS CHR—god _damn_ it, Blake.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Blake sat on the edge of his desk, smirking. “What is it?”

“No friendly _welcome back_ , partner? Just, ‘what is it?’ Come on, I just came back from a two-month mission outside the country. _Don’t_ tell me you weren’t thinking about me all this time I wasn’t here.”

When Jayden returned from India, he made no attempts of even letting Blake in his mind. All he could think about when he got home to Washington was his bed, and he wasn’t allowed to do just that yet until he had all the paperwork done. Something about his visions of Blake and the constant reminders of their first case together during the mission had changed his perception of him. He was not just a ticking bomb waiting for explode, but he was also an intruder.

“I didn’t know you were gone. I didn’t— _God_ , you scared me.” Jayden looked at him properly. Blake didn’t change one bit, he even wore the clothes Jayden last remembered seeing him in. “Where were you?”

Blake didn’t answer, instead, he made himself comfortable sitting in Jayden’s desk. He crossed his arms. “I can’t believe you didn’t ask around for me. It breaks my heart that after two years working together you’re still a cold-hearted bastard.”

“I’m _sorry_ sweetheart, what do you want me to do? Take you to a restaurant? How about a walk in the park?”

His smirk turned into a scowl. “Very fucking funny. Do you have a problem with me? Huh? Is there something you aren’t telling me that seemed to be fucking your mind?”

“Oh, I don’t _know_ , where do I start? I have a _lot_ of problems with you, like maybe, for example, you’re not making any fucking sense right now. But today you come here to ask for my validation for your existence. What is it that you want from me after this, a treat? I thought you loathed me, Blake, even though we’ve worked for so long. And what are we having here, you’re warming up to me now?”

“I have a problem with you since the day I met you, asshole, and I wish I didn’t come here if I knew you’d be fucking around here.”

“Well, guess what, Blake? I think that’s the only thing we both have in common with each other.”

“Fuck _you_ , Norman.” Blake got up and swept all the folders and devices from the table. “I guess you don’t need me at all. You’re fine getting pissy all on your own!”

Jayden slammed his hand and shot up from his seat. “You’re god damn right I don’t need your help because I have every right to get angry at you. And for God’s sake, Blake,” he yelled as he watched his partner storm out. “Knock on the fucking door before you enter!”

“Well, forgive _me_ for my fucking manners.” He slammed the door behind him.

Jayden collapsed back down to his seat and took deep breaths. When he calmed, he fiddled with his glasses. He was sure he locked the door like he always did.

##

It didn’t feel like two years had passed. The passage of time was lost to Jayden when it comes to work, only dabbled on it when it deemed necessary since he was now a stranger to the concept of an ordinary life. He left that ever since he signed a piece of paper two months before he exited university. He wished not to look back on it, especially with everything he had left, all the people he loved, just so he could chase his unreachable dream. They could feel his eyes on him, waiting for him to fold and turn towards them, to come home. But he would continue walking forward, and only forward.

They must have seen him on television after his investigation in the Origami Killer. All the press release must be printing his name everywhere. When he came back to Washington, his colleagues sang praise for his work and made fun of his fame, and it stuck with him through the following months. Some of the praises turned into ire and jealousy; they became more annoyed with him, however, they still remained civil, polite. But his family made no attempt to contact him during that time. He made no effort to reach out to them, either.

He always kept all of his relationships in arm’s length; the treatment was not exclusive to Carter Blake. He wished not to form any close attachments, to spare them the pain of heartbreak for both of them. His last serious romance was back ten years ago when he was still young and healthy and happy and life was just _normal_ for him. He did not actively pursue a life of loneliness. The conditions he put himself prevented someone— _anyone_ —to get a hold of him, and he the same. Quietly, he accepted it. That was just the way it was for him.

##

He did find himself thinking about Blake when he wasn’t around. His true motives, his transition from a normal human being to a self-centred bastard surprised Jayden and continued to do so. Just when he had an inkling of knowing who Blake was, he would do a complete one-eighty turn and punch him in the face. Despite their partnership, their relationship was too tense and angry to be able to mend itself, even from the beginning when Carter joined the FBI when he was playing nice with Jayden.

Their last case together was the investigation of a potentially dangerous terrorist named Forrest Stevens. A 65-year-old man born in Boston, Massachusetts, he had orchestrated several terrorist attacks all over America in the past thirty years, including several unrelated but closed case incidents where the suspects had been detained and convicted. Forrest Stevens maintained a large country-wide network, operating an underground city of home-grown terrorists and spies right at the tip of his fingers. Their task was not about tracking him down. There was no need to look anywhere, because he stood right at the top of the food chain, and he controlled the world through many private corporations and holdings. He and his family charted the course of humanity’s progress, taught people how to think, set generational trends to influence the youth through one corporal method: advertisements. The roots of capitalism emerged together and he was the product, the apple of the tree. With his power, he was able to erase any trace of his involvement in the attacks. Undoubtedly, he was the most powerful man in the world.

The case was a decade old and it cycled through many agents and investigators over the years, some had died in the line of duty. Now, the FBI wanted Norman Jayden, a 36-year-old senior special agent, to take charge of it. He was also chosen as a representative of several other intelligence agencies, and he received direct orders from the Commander-in-chief himself. They assigned to him a squad of agents who would assist in in the case. They were a power group, coupled together to dismantle Stevens’s empire of corruption. Throughout the investigation, Jayden became the beacon for anti-terrorism. This was, by far, the heaviest responsibility they had laid on his shoulders, and gravity of his position kept him grounded and humble.

The case was sensitive and the process was fragile. They wouldn’t walk into the terrorist hangout and just brandish their badge and say they were the FBI. Strings must be pulled, moles to be created, relationships to be broken. They handled this with delicate and soft hands. It was a long-running opera, a tale of love and betrayal spinning in motion. They did not intrude like viruses in the system but manipulated the inner circle from the outside with emotions. With their wits and technology more advanced than ARI, they turned friends into enemies, repaired divorces, made complete strangers meet. Such actions influenced the direction of the enemy’s plans, creating a ripple effect that would eventually touch the shoulders of Forrest Stevens.

What brought the slow descent of the group was not the potential danger in their lives and the lives of their loved ones when they took the assignment, but because of little scuffles within the group. Disagreements were common, but it did not draw any setbacks to the progress of the case. Carter Blake, however, had a bone to pick with everyone.

One of them—Tyler Miles, a former New York City cop and a fresh face in the FBI—worked as a double agent for the case. His role was to provide movements of several persons. He had the riskiest job in the group, with Steven’s higher-ups growing increasingly suspicious of him, and now Blake doubted the loyalty of this agent to the mission and was constantly on his ass.

For a day both Tyler and Blake asked for a day off. Such a thing wouldn’t make anyone worried, maybe they were sick or something came up. The case was stressful after all, and no one would blame them for taking a break from it. But Jayden’s paranoia spun out of control like a goddamn Spidey-sense. He searched for them, followed the trail they left. No one knew where Blake had gone, but Tyler’s friends were able to point the way their colleague went.

And they pointed towards an ongoing construction of another grandiose office building. One that had been boycott a few times because it would ruin the aesthetic of good old Washington, D.C. Just standing by the gates in the pouring rain added more weight on his heavy heart, every vein under his skin screaming that something was just wrong. He burst into the construction site and listened to what his guts said, let it lead him to the core of his worries. Jayden found the two missing agents alone in the finished basement, with Tyler lying in a pool of blood, and Blake standing over the body.

“ _Jesus_ Christ, Blake.” He wanted to charge at him. He couldn’t find the words to say anything else, couldn’t fucking describe the shock he felt even though he knew in the bottom of his heart this was going to happen. “What the hell are you doing?!”

The agent on the floor coughed and groaned, clutching his stomach. Blake turned to him. “You see here, Norman?” Blake held a small microchip between his fingers. “This guy was ready to sell us out. And you have the fucking audacity to defend him. Don’t tell me he’s just doing his job. Here, see for yourself.”

He tossed the chip. Out of reflex, Jayden caught it. He clutched it in his palm, put his hand back to his side. “This is no excuse to resort to violence just so you could prove a point to me.”

“Violence? A _point_? For fuck’s sake, that is _evidence_ you’re holding, you stupid fuck!”

Jayden rushed to the agent and knelt before him. He turned his body over slowly. All the blood was coming from the agent’s mouth, nose, and his eyes. From the way he was breathing, some of his organs must have been punctured. Signs of internal bleeding were evident with the way he rolled around in pain. “Where are you hurting?”

Tyler choked out his words. “N-Norman, I—I can explain...”

“Don’t tell me. Just save it for later.” Jayden put Tyler’s arm around his shoulders and pulled him up to his feet.

Blake went in-between them, yanked Jayden away by his jacket, and threw him against the wall. He grabbed Jayden’s collar and lifted him up. “Listen to me for once, asshole!” He was nose to nose with him. “It’s always been your fucking way, but this time I get to do what I want! This time _you_ listen to _me_!”

Jayden propelled his fist towards Blake’s face. The latter staggered backwards, letting him go, but recoiled with his own punch. It landed on the side of Jayden’s head, and the force of the blow sent him down to the floor.

Jayden pushed himself up—and at the same second, both men pulled their guns from their holster belts and aimed at each other. The muzzles rested against each others’ foreheads. Blake’s nose was bleeding and broken. Every inch of Jayden’s body hurt. They maintained their aim and their gazes for a while, with Blake forcing the gun against his partner’s skin until it would leave a mark, but Jayden silently pulled down the safety of his own weapon, finger on the trigger, itching to move.

Blake was the first one to pull away from the tension, but the two of them didn’t let their guard down. With his arm still outstretched, Jayden shuffled around him, never taking his eyes off his partner, and pulled Tyler up to his feet, now only half-conscious. They paced towards the door. At the doorway, he put his gun back to his holster and they made their exit, not looking back.

##

Jayden was shaking in pain and anger. The left side of his head was purple, and the corner of his mouth swelled. He had brought Tyler to the emergency room, and when the nurses turned to Jayden, he insisted that he only received a quick patch job when the nurses pushed on tending to his bruises. As he drove back to Washington, back to headquarters, he reflected the last few hours, of Blake’s violence and expose. Jayden lost the microchip in the fist fight, but if Blake was right, then he would have to investigate the problem by himself. Tyler, after all, offered an explanation.

The first thing he needed to do was to get rid of the damn scumbag from the mission. When he entered his supervisor’s office, he said his request with a clear voice. “I want Blake out of my case.”

His boss—a woman in her late forties—leaned forward, putting the files she held down. “Blake?”

“Carter Blake. I’m filing a complaint, I want him out of the Forrest Stevens case.” He fought the urge to be foul-mouthed. “You have no idea how much of a problem he is in the investigation, and all the previous ones he did with me. He is unprofessional and he violates several rights and conduct codes. For Christ’s sake, he beat the _shit_ out of—”

“Agent Jayden.” She took off her glasses and placed them on the table. “I think you’re making a mistake. A Carter Blake has not been assigned to your case. As far as I know, I don’t recall we have an agent that goes with that name.”

His ears must have stopped working. “What?”

“You must be talking about Adam Blake, but we have assigned the Forrest Stevens case to you alone.”

“Are you telling me that Carter Blake doesn’t exist?”

“Virtually, he doesn’t. There is no Carter Blake working with us.” The office transformed and they were underwater. Instinctively, Jayden held his breath, even though it was all an illusion. He knew it was an illusion, but his body disagreed. His eyes deceived his mind, and there was nothing more solid and real than what was in front of you. If he breathed, he’d drown.

He was no stranger to such manipulations. Not anymore. But it correlated with the revelation he could not ignore it as a coincidence, as “perfect timing”.

“Agent.” She stood up, her voice firm and yet concern. “Are you alright?”

“I—” He gulped. He stumbled backwards and knocked open the door. “I—I will be right back. Excuse m-me.” He walked away briskly, arms around himself, and his head down.

##

He stormed into this office and locked the door. Involuntarily, he reached out to his pockets for his triptocaine, but once he was aware of what he was about to do, he immediately threw the vial across the room. No matter how many times he tried to dispose of it, protocol demanded all agents who used ARI to carry the drug with them. He reached out instead for his phone, ready to dial for Captain Leighton Perry. He just needed to access his phonebook. There was no way that Carter Blake couldn’t exist. He was too much of an asshole to be true, but he was real as any other person in this building. He worked on the Origami Killer case for two years, and he interacted with several other people. He almost _killed_ some of them.

Almost killed Jayden.

And Jayden couldn’t be hallucinating. Not right now, during an important investigation. Could it be that Carter Blake happened to waltz in the headquarters from day one and just toyed around with him? No, that couldn’t be, his superiors have acknowledged him several times, sent Jayden assignments through him. Why did they forget? Did the entire Bureau decide to play a game with him? Did they terminate Blake from the office without notifying Jayden about it?

There was one other possibility in his string of theories that ran his mind, but he refused to believe that one. It was not logical, not reasonable. But he recalled when the Bureau first introduced ARI in its experimental stages. The technology was too good to be true, something that would have come out of science fiction movies. But here he was, using it for the most mundane purpose such as playing tanks and bouncing a rubber ball to an invisible wall. Here he was, using it to solve his cases and tracking down criminals and perpetrators. Here he was, facing ripped realities and dreams that were tearing him apart.

From the corner where Jayden had thrown the vial, Blake emerged from the shadows. “You wanna know why I’m here, Norman Jayden?”

Jayden clutched his phone in his hand. He heart thumped against his chest, thumping far too loudly than he could bear to hear, but he kept a steady gaze. “Who...no, _what_ the hell are you?”

Blake scoffed. “Are you not seeing the obvious? I am the end of the road. I am your guardian angel. I am everything that you aren’t.” He walked slowly. His footsteps echoed. “Come on, Norman. Deep inside, you _know_ who and what I am. You just don’t want to say it. You just don’t want to face it.”

Jayden clenched his teeth. His nose dripped blood. “Fucker. I’m not going to play games with you.”

“Norman, I’ve never played games with you. You’re too much of a pussy to handle the damn game itself.”

“Get the fuck out, Blake.”

“Norman, do you really want me to spell it out for you?”

“No,” He dropped his phone and clutched his head with his hands, wrapping his fingers around his hair. He slid down against the door and sat on the carpet. “Shut the fuck up shut the _fuck_ up—”

“Norman—”

“Don’t fucking _say_ it!”

“—I’m you.”

Autumn leaves fell on his Blake’s shoulders. His office had always smelled like stale air-conditioning and cheap freshener, but now it was of fresh grass, running rivers, and lightning, and in Jayden’s mind this was all true. All god damn true.

Blake grabbed his neck. Under his skin where veins and blood and bones, Jayden was so sure of that, because he was holding him and killing him slowly. “I’m you, Norman.” He spoke so softly, and there was no mistake of the sound vibrations travelling to his ears. “Your heartbeat is mine, our every breath is the same. It’s time to see it this way. You’re too afraid to be angry and you created me, so all fingers won’t be pointing at you when you snap. _‘Norman didn’t do it, Carter Blake did, he hurt that kid just so he could get some flimsy evidence from him. Carter Blake just doesn't know how to handle himself.’_ But everyone’s seeing it differently, Norman. I didn’t hurt people. You did.”

Jayden chocked in his grip, but the strength to fight back was lost; Blake drained it all through the tips of his fingertips, the nails digging into his skin.

“You think I’m an unbalanced asshole? Check yourself out first.” He tightened his grip. “You never handled your anger very well, because you never liked to idea of it. You want to be meek and quiet and kind, but that’s not the case, buddy. That’s never always the case. There’s so much hate in you, it’s unbelievable your heart is still beating. You need to let it all out, but you’re afraid for yourself, afraid of the truth. So I’m here for you. I’m here to balance you, to make you appear as if _you’re_ the hero, stroke your tiny ego because you are a very good person, a saint, but you’re just a god damn human being. And now, it’s time to you see that.”

Jayden managed to croak. “F-fuck you, Carter.” The wind picked up and rain started to pour. Lighting flashed and the trees swayed and bent against their will.

Blake threw his head back and laughed. Laughed like a hyena, laughed like he had a prey cornered and now he was going to devour him. Laughed like it was the last thing Jayden would hear. It made the room colder. “Is that all you’re going to say? Is that all that you can think of? I’m disappointed. You’ve got to wise up, pretty boy, because I’m not done with you.”

Jayden fell to the ground, and he was back in his office, alone. The carpet was stained with drops of his blood and tears.

##

ARI lied. It was always a liar, even though it was programmed to hold and tell the truth. There was no Carter Blake, but instead, ARI created him for his convenience. It monitored Jayden’s emotions and conditions constantly, listed down all his wants and fears whenever it was brought up in his psyche. And all of this manifested into a fictional character, making its appearance in the beginning of the Origami Killer case, when Jayden was becoming more fond of ARI, more fond of it enhancing to his reality, and when he silently wished that he could stay there, ARI delivered.

No longer his five senses sent signals to his brain, it was his brain telling every nerve in the body what it thought it _should_ be seeing and hearing and feeling. ARI wanted Carter Blake to exist for Jayden, so it fashioned him, creating a history, a personality, an appearance, so he was as believable and real as himself. And Jayden had fallen for it, followed the shadow everywhere it was programmed to go, spoke to it when he wished to understand his ideas, wished to be challenged, wished to hear his own thoughts. Carter Blake was made to help him grow. He didn’t shadow Norman Jayden in the years they had worked. He was _the_ shadow.

But Blake went rogue and started to reflect too much on Jayden’s troubles and fears, of emotions that Jayden wished not to dwell on, and now Blake grew tired of Jayden and had started affecting the people around them. Carter Blake had developed a mind and soul of his own—gave himself a name—and the circle was complete.

In the end, Jayden was the one who barged into Nathaniel’s apartment, was the one staring down at the barrel of Nathaniel’s gun. He was the one who attacked Clarence Dupre, Ethan Mars’s psychologist, taking away his rights and disrespecting the code of confidentiality the man tried to protect until he broke him. He arrested Ethan Mars himself and stomped on him until he was on the ground, unconscious and bleeding while chained on a table, left to stay there for a night until he decided that _maybe_ he was not the Origami Killer at all.

When he thought of all of this, denial was inevitable. He would never hurt anyone, especially Ethan Mars. _Never_. But when he resolved to go into the case without Blake, he had no problem becoming more aggressive. He assumed that it was desperation in solving the case and finding Shaun Mars. He wasn’t doing it because he was having a problem with all the people he had come across, but he did all this out of spite. He was always kicked around and belittled, even by his colleagues. Such treatment didn’t get to him at first, but once it started to get in the way of the case, once he realized that they genuinely doubted his capabilities, that they continued to send the message that they didn’t _need_ him, he slowly cracked. He wanted to show them that he was capable of taking down men who disobeyed the law. He wanted to show them that he was capable of _killing_ a man.

His mind tossed around with the idea of something that shouldn’t be tossed around in a normal, healthy brain. Ever since he started taking triptocaine, he could see clearly but not think clearly. Some elements still puzzled him, as the people seem to be playing with the little game he had set up, but there was nothing else for him to recover, nothing else to grasp and to help him piece together. His memories were permanently blotched and destroyed, and any recollection of the real events was lost in translation.

This was Norman Jayden’s analysis on his current dilemma. He remained on the floor of his office while he flipped through the cases in which he and Carter Blake worked together, including the profile ARI had built for him. A person didn’t need Jayden’s level of expertise in psychology and mental disorders to be able to understand what Carter Blake represented in his psyche. The bullied became the bully, that was how it all came to. Blake was, in a mythological and religious terms, a tulpa. He appeared only when he needed to be. What he wanted now, though, was still a mystery. Did he want to kill Jayden and replace him, in the classical dissociative identity disorder style? Was Blake a good person deep down, or was it all just a projection in Jayden’s head, wanting him to be good?

All this didn’t matter anymore, though. Jayden took off his glasses. Blood replaced his tears, and he casually wiped it away with his fingers. He wasn’t getting any better, as he thought he would be after years of carefully building a support system that would keep him going for _just a bit_ , just a bit until he could brush his fingers on his impossible dream. He thought that he was getting well when the projections intruded his world a little less, but he deducted that he was suffering the worst case of ARI’s damaging side-effects, and he wasn’t ready to admit it, he wasn’t ready to let go of his career. The illusion of Carter Blake only confirmed to Jayden what he had been thinking all along since he first met him in the wastelands at Philadelphia.

He was dying.

##

He resigned from the Forrest Stevens case quietly the same day he discovered Blake’s true nature. He hesitated on the idea of resigning from his position completely and instead asked for a couple weeks of leave. When his superiors inquired about his well-being—seeing as he had not changed from his clothes the last they saw him and did not come out from his office until an hour ago—he refused to comment on it. Too fucking late for them to notice a difference in his state of mind. Too fucking late for them to save him. He emerged from headquarters emotionally exhausted and rattled, and he felt all eyes bearing down on him. He drove to the hospital and ask for Tyler’s room. “I’m not family, but I brought him here,” he said to the reception. He was talking to the same nurse who tried to make him stay, and she had already forgotten him.

There was a woman in his room, his wife. She stood up immediately when Jayden walked in. Her eyes were puffy and red. She stared coldly at him, biting her lip. She stared at him as if she knew that he was the one who had hurt Tyler.

Jayden swallowed the dry lump in his throat. She turned away wordlessly, her expression softening. She sat down and placed her hands on her face.

He didn’t stay for too long, especially when he was wracked with guilt, pain, and pure anger towards himself. He was supposed to be _smart_ and _cunning_. He was supposed to be level-headed, not led by his guts and instincts, but by his wits, and look where it had gotten him now, about to rage war against an imaginary being his damaged mind conjured for him.

He looked at his colleague for a minute, thinking about all the people he had wrongly hurt in the past. What did his friend see? What did he _think_? He would never know. “I’m so sorry,” Jayden whispered.

The woman looked up. He left the room.

##

He placed Katherine under the care of his next-door neighbour in the apartment building, a little girl living with a single mother. The girl had grown fond of his cat, being as her pet-sitter all her life when Jayden had to leave Washington for many interprovincial and international cases. And Katherine loved getting attention from people other than Jayden, loved them more than she loved him. But this time she was reluctantly letting go of her owner, her claws digging into his suit’s fabric and against his skin.

Her cage and bag of food sat near his feet. The little girl’s arms were wide and open, ready to take Katherine in. Her mother stood behind her, arms crossed. “How long would you be away?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” He was never sure with the duration of his absence. But they really wouldn’t complain if he was long-overdue; he always paid handsomely. “I won’t be too long. Maybe a week.”

“Where are you going?”

He didn’t really know. “Not far.”

“If you’re not going away for too long, I think the cat would survive just alright by herself.”

“I can’t be too sure about that.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I’m just worried for her, that’s all.” He bent down to let the cat drop from his hold, but she clung defiantly. “It’s okay,” Jayden cooed against her fur. “I’ll be back like I always do.” He pulled her away from himself and placed her in the arms of the girl. With the cat finally in his her care, she and Katherine ran inside the apartment.

Jayden brushed away the fur from his jacket and looked at the woman. “If you need anything else for the cat...”

“I know. Spare keys in your mailbox.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded and took the cage and the bag into her home. There was nothing left to say. They knew the drill. Like everyone else, he kept his relationships professional, nothing more, nothing less. He wished it was not so.

##

Las Vegas. The final destination. All the bright lights, all the stars in the sky. All the glamour showcased in television and movies when it was just really another over-hyped city, where the appearance of several celebrities and its red light districts and its pseudo-opportunities brought its international fame. Here, his last escape.

His mind had passed the point of no return. He could no longer salvage whatever was left of himself. But something about the city appealed to him when he was standing in the airport terminal, looking over departures. This was the place to pick himself up.

He did not want a quiet sanctuary. It was in the quiet his insanity always kicked in, and where he would be left in his thoughts and right now it was not the greatest place to be in. When his closed all the lights in his hotel room, he let the curtains to the sides and the neon signs outside shine through his windows, through his eyelids, eliminating all illusions that would materialize in his imagination. The sounds of music and of traffic lulled him to a more peaceful sleep.

He could never relax in loose and casual clothing, and even when he simply wanted to stay at home, he kept himself neat and sharp. Nice brown tweed jacket black shirt underneath. Jeans maybe, when he wanted to make people feel comfortable around him, and then shoes that were a little too worn for his taste, having seen puddles and rain in its lifetime. His face was shaven all the time. His hair, though, he let it be unruly. His idea of “casual”, a habit that formed and persisted because of his occupation’s sense of urgency. Any minute, he’d get a phone call, asking for him to go take a case, asking him to get out of his seat and work.

He did not participate in all the escapades the city had to offer, but he was an observer. He sat down with a guy who slept in the streets, shared a table with a stranger in a coffee shop, watched an old lady in front of a pachinko machine win a jackpot. Every night, though, he would go to a bar and indulge himself with an assortment of cocktail drinks. He hung out around the bartender’s counter, listened to the stories he told him. Women and men—more of the latter than the former—would slide themselves beside him, flirted with him, tried to get him drunk, coaxed him to dance with them. He turned them away politely. He liked his solitude amidst a crowd.

One night, he made a deviation from his routine by diving into a table and stage gig. He settled down on a seat, ordered rum and coke, and watched a woman with a piano, reading the lyrics of her songs from her composition sheets. He drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, listening to the keys and chords of the song and imitating her piano playing himself. Her voice and her words soothed his soul, pressed down the creases and wrinkles in his troubled mind. Jayden’s eyes stung, and he covered them while the entire room rose to an applause, and the woman on stage smiled timidly and thanked her audience. He breathed in, breathed out. God, he was too fucking sober for this.

At the end of the song, he finished his drink and went back out to the streets. The wind was chillier. He pulled his jacket around himself. Turned its collar up against the wind. Back on the road. Back to square one for him. The last escape. His final effort to try to make some things right.

##

Jayden lived in-between worlds. One where he could control the heavens with just a flick of his wrist, and one where he had to suffer materialistic pain and suffering because of his manipulations of the other reality. Once he had grown accustomed to Last Vegas’s aesthetic, he turned to his next step to recovery and to a mastery of an art form, as he liked to think about it.

He drove out of the city and into the desert. When the city was out of sight behind him, he swerved off-road to the right, tires plowing through the sand. He chased the canyons from beyond the horizon, chased the sun going west until it disappeared and the first stars burned through the darkness above.

Once night had settled in comfortably, he killed the engine of his vehicle and got out. His eyes adjusted to the area. No lights helped him see, except for the moon, which provided little assistance. He sat on the hood of his car and laid his back against the front window. He took ARI from his pocket and entered game mode. Started bouncing a ball against imaginary brick walls, try to bump his score until it hit 30,000, wasted what little time left he had in the world. He continued on until his vision distorted and his sense of reality seemed to shift, even though he did not request for a change of scenery. Bile rose from the pit of his stomach.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He threw down his glasses and clutched himself. His body screamed with pain, but he pushed through it nakedly. Out there in the void of his psyche, was the key to his deliverance. Out there, in the sea of voices in his head while it throbbed and bled inside of him, was the solution. Then his tremors stopped.

He wasn’t alone anymore. Walking towards him was a copy of Norman Jayden himself, but composed and maybe even smug. There was colour in his skin, and his eyes were brighter and more beautiful. Warmth radiated from his body, but his smirk was cold.

Jayden pushed himself away. He was prepared for the worst, but this wasn’t what he was expecting. He was prepared to see someone else, but it seemed like his subconscious wished to take him to one last trial: to speak to ARI directly.

“So,” his clone started. “It all comes down to this. Are you scared?”

“Scared?” Jayden clutched his chest. He might have done the greatest mistake of his life, just so he could prove a hypothesis that he had been formulating about ever since he arrived in Nevada. “I’m dying. I think I’m dying right now. Of course, I’m fucking afraid.”

“It’s right for you to be afraid. You’ve trespassed into a territory you can’t turn back on. Your time was up. But it’s going to be okay. You won’t be alone.” His sinister smirk turned into a genuine, soft smile. He looked so concerned it unnerved Jayden. He extended his hand towards him. “Take my hand. I’m not the harbinger of death, but I can do one last thing for you. I can make death swift and peaceful for you. You won’t feel any pain, you can just close your eyes and sleep.”

He looked down at his mirror’s palm. He could count each line on his skin. “No. I can’t. I have to go back. I have to wake up. But...”

“There’s a but?”

“I have to do something. I have to _control_ something.”

“Control?” ARI retracted his arm. (But was he really ARI? Or was the man in front of him his rational mind?) “You have no power over the world, Norman. Not even this one, especially not when you’re taking your last breaths. You don’t have the capability of manipulating reality. This is your head we’re in right now, not in ARI, not even in your damn drug trips. Who do you think you are, God? Come on. You’re not really...thinking of that, are you?”

“I don’t know. But that’s...that’s why I’m here. I’m here to figure this out.”

“By _deliberately_ killing yourself?”

“This was bound to happen anyway. I was just...waiting for the right time.”

“It’s not going to be easy. Waking up, I mean.”

“I don’t care. I can’t die here. I’ll get through this, and I’ll have what I need.”

“Listen to me, Norman. I think you’re really out of your mind now. You’ve made so many mistakes in the past, and you’ve had so many chances to set everything straight. But you just keep running your head against the same wall again and again. Whatever you want to control, isn’t happening anymore. It’s too late now.”

“Too late? Time is an arbitrary measurement. It doesn’t exist, just like you, and just like Carter Blake. We created it because we _need_ the convenience of measurement.” He felt some of his strength coming back to him, his sense of determination equipping itself on his mind and his lips. “Yeah, it’s late, but to be honest, I’ve crossed the line twenty years ago.” He smiled. “And I never look back. Each ticking second fades behind me. I have no family, no friends, no past. I have nothing to lose but myself.”

The other Jayden was quiet for a bit. “I see you’ve passed the crisis point. You can no longer be saved, and you refused to be saved, even by yourself. Norman, I....I’m disappointed. You’re much better than this. So much better than this.”

“Face it, buddy, I’ve derailed into a ditch. And in order for me to keep on going, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll die on my own terms, even if it means dying a madman.” He made a weak shooing gesture. “So if you could just leave me be and give me a little bit of time to solve this...”

His clone shook his head, not taking his eyes off him. The smug air was wiped clean, only replaced with pure sadness. Sorrow. “You have one more day,” he said. “I think you already know that.” He disappeared, and Jayden was alone again.

He enjoyed his victory over his rational mind by staring up at the same old stars, and the same old moon. Once he had come to terms with his encounter of this....other self, the shock of his wide-eyed dream finally hit him. “Oh my God,” he whispered to himself. He pulled his legs against his chest and cried on his knees. “Oh my God.”

 

##

Jayden sat on the bed of his hotel room, reading through the files in his ARI once more. Once he was done consulting with the information he needed to see, he snapped his glasses in half. That was one million dollars down the drain. He looked down at the gun beside him. He picked it up and fiddled around with it, checked the chamber to see if it had bullets, then closed his eyes. He listened to his slow heart beat.

The heat of the room shot up, and sweat trickled down his neck and his back. He opened his eyes and found himself on top of a mountain, the same one in his simulated reality where he could see the beauty of the world from all four corners. But no beauty graced this time, for the sky was blood red, the earth was crisp and grey, and lava flowed through the riverbanks. Ash fell and stayed on his skin like stains on the wall. He stood upon at the creation of the planet or the destruction of it.

He placed his gun down to his lap. What a magnificent sight, the state of his mind.

“Oh, don’t tell me. You’re seriously not going to kill yourself?”

He looked to his left, and the ghost of the machine materialized. He strode to him, arms wide and smiling, imitating his introduction from the first day they had met as colleagues, when the presence of the man struck fear in Jayden’s heart. But he was no longer afraid. His mind was no longer an enigma that he had to puzzle on the complexities and intricacies. Light had been shone upon the darkest corners of his psyche. Calm tided over him.

He was no longer afraid of himself.

“Carter,” Jayden said.

“Norman.” Blake crossed his arms. “Is this end for you? Are you just going to shoot a bullet through your head to get rid of me?”

“If it means putting an end to everything, then yes.”

“You’re a coward until the end, aren’t you?”

Jayden flinched. “Regardless, I don’t...I don’t think I could get rid of you.”

“And even if you don’t kill yourself now, you don’t have enough time to live. You know that. The clock’s ticking, and any day now you’re going to fold. Eventually, I’ll kill you if you keep me here, alive and draining the life out of you because you’re sick.”

“I know.” He stood up from his bed and pointed the gun at Carter.

Blake laughed. “Really? That’s your answer to everything? You can’t kill me, Norman. I don’t exist at all.”

“I know I can’t kill you.” Jayden pointed the gun to the side of his head. “So square up, Carter.”

Blake turned his smile into a frown. He moved forward, but Jayden took a step back, making sure the distance between them was still the same.

“What’s this? Are you scared _for_ me? You can’t seriously be afraid of me offing myself?” Jayden had him cornered. He relished on the satisfaction of actually caging this man. “I can’t kill you, but you can still die, Carter. You’re right, I am sick. But I have the power over what happens to me. And it _seems_ like you actually care for me. That’s really nice. _Really_ charming to know, after all the years.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Well, yes I am, Carter. It’s the end of the road for me, like you said. I won’t succumb to you, or my sickness any longer. I’ll take myself to paradise now.”

“Jesus Christ. You have gone insane.”

Jayden grinned. He cocked down the hammer of the gun. Finger on the trigger.

Blake charged. He tried to wrestle the weapon out of Jayden’s hands, but the latter fought him back, kicked and punched while the gun was above his head, out of reach, like hell that would actually work when his partner towered him by several inches, like hell everything he threw would work against the goddamn bastard he created, but he felt the world on his shoulders and his life on the line, and Jayden was surprised he still had the will to live.

He managed to push Blake down on the ground, and with instinct kicking in his guts, pointed the gun at him and fired.

Blake froze. He slowly looked down to his chest, hands clawing over his shirt. Jayden shakily lowered the gun. It might have done something, he didn’t know. But there was no wound, no blood spilling over the shirt’s fabric.

Blake started to chuckle, once the anxiety left him. “Oh, that’s a good one. You got me.” His chuckle was louder, more piercing, more triumphant. It echoed across the valley of chaos.

Irritated, Jayden whipped the gun across Blake’s face. It shut him up. Blood oozed from his cheek, but he was not deterred. At the next instant, he seized Jayden’s right arm and kicked his legs, forcing him to kneel. Blake pinned him down to the dirt with one foot on his back and stomped the arm he kept hold with the other.

Bones cracked under his sole. Jayden screamed in pure agony, his nerves shooting up to his brain and filling his eyes with tears.

“That’s right, Norman! Scream! Where’s your power now?” Blake took the gun from Jayden’s hand and threw it aside. He stomped on his face, made him turn on his side, and kicked his ribs several times. Jayden coughed out blood. When Blake stopped, he hugged his body and cradled his broken arm, throat hoarse and dry.

“You wanna die that badly?” Blake paced around him. “Well, just fucking tell me, so I could serve it on a fucking platter!”

One more kick in the guts. Jayden retched. Just a reflex, nothing came out. His gun was out of sight. He fell unconscious for a few seconds. When he came to be, he tried to take something from the inside pocket of his jacket, coughing more blood.

Blake inched closer. “What? You have something for me? Another damn gun?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t take anything out from his pockets, only brandished his middle finger to Blake. “This is for you.”

“What a bold son of a bitch you are.” Another kick. But Jayden kept his arm up with his gesture of defiance, smirking proudly. No matter what Blake did, he never wavered from putting his arm down, until the former picked him up from the ground and made him stand on his feet—just what Jayden needed because he didn’t have the strength anymore.

Blake scowled when he smiled and continued to persist. He held Jayden by the collar of his shirt. “Wipe that smirk from your face, Norman.”

He tilted his head to the right as if he didn’t know what he was talking about. “Try.”

Blake threw him aside, right the edge of the mountain, at the tip of falling down. “Say something right, for God’s sake!”

He stayed there on the ground, looking over the plains. The world burned below them. He could keep going until he could coax Blake to kill him without him knowing it, keep going until Blake disappeared, just keep going until something _happened_. He could take all the time in the world to fight him. There were so many ways to approach this, to finish this once and for all. But staring down the devastation below him made Jayden think about his methods.

He liked to think he could go on, but he knew that was not true. The valley crumbled. The mountains fell. The sun above disappeared. Who was he kidding? He had no more time in the world.

“Carter,” he managed to call out, his voice croaky. He pushed himself up. “Carter.” He said his name as if he was a lover. He tasted each letter on his tongue.

He shuffled towards him, holding his right arm. Blake didn’t move from his spot and merely watched him approach. But Jayden’s remaining strength could only take him far, and he started falling face first to the ground. Instead of hitting the earth, he found himself in Blake’s arms.

Jayden wrapped his left arm around Blake and placed his chin on his shoulder. With his nose broken, he breathed through his mouth, in soft pants and sighs. His eyesight blurred.

_Say something right._

“Carter,” he whispered in his ear. “I forgive you.”

Blake didn’t say anything. Jayden wondered what he looked like, wondered what was going through his mind as he said these words.

“I don’t like you,” Jayden continued. His jaw was numb. “And you don’t like me. But we’re stuck together. So we need to love each other.”

He tuned out the roar of the earth and listened quietly to their heartbeats, which thumped against their chests. He waited until they beat as one. _Love_ was a word that was foreign on his tongue, and it had been so long, so long since he last said them. “I forgive you,” he said, once more. “I forgive you and I love you. Let’s just call it a draw. It’s over, now. The comedy is over.”

Blake still wouldn’t move. Jayden found his hand snaking around Blake’s side, inside his jacket, and touched the handle of his gun, brushed his fingers against its rough side. Blake wasn’t stopping him, but Jayden didn’t take it. He simply closed his eyes and sighed.

This was merely a bleak resolution to months of pain and misery, but this was fine. The world shattered all around them during their embrace but that was alright.

##

He was not in his hotel room anymore when the visions faded away. Jayden laid in the middle of the lobby, arms spread out beside him like Christ crucified. All eyes around him stared at his bloody and beaten up body.

He stared wide-eyed to the chandelier above him. He breathed slowly, but unevenly. The lights around him were too blinding for him to bear. He closed his eyes, blinking away blood from the rims of his eyelids. His organs shut down one by one. He couldn’t feel his right arm. This was fine. Everything was over now. Everything was done. He could rest now.

Someone called 911. A doctor on the scene, who happened to be there for a vacation with his family, rushed towards him and checked his pulse. Security guards pushed the crowd away. Sirens and music blared in the distance. Traffic. Chatter. All the lights and sounds moved away from Jayden’s consciousness, as if they had feet, running for their lives.

A ghost of a smile haunted Jayden’s features.

 

##

_AGENT NAME: Norman Jayden_

_BIRTH DATE: August 14, 1977_

_PLACE OF BIRTH: Boston, Massachusetts_

_SUMMARY OF CHARACTER AND EVENTS_

_Agent Jayden was one of the first selected users of the Added Reality Interface (ARI) Device. He tested alpha and beta versions of the technology, supplying feedback and criticism over the development, making him a primary contributor to the project. However, his constant use of the ARI during his investigations had created a psychological impact on his brain and an enormous strain on his health. He had been providing false information to our medical professionals and grew neglectful of his own well-being._

_Jayden has already been displaying his mania in the last few cases he was assigned to. Some reports say that he became more aggressive and unreasonable, as opposed to being a reserved, quiet man as he was before. His nonverbal episodes—while not uncommon—were more frequent. He did not speak for days and locked himself in his office. He was in a constant state of withdrawal, although he was not aware of it. He was more,“himself,” as his colleague Amir Malhotra put in regards to their mission in India, but after Chauhan’s hostage incident, Jayden had become more guarded and wary. He recently injured fellow agent Tyler Miles during the Forrest Stevens case in an ongoing construction site. During the course of the scuffle, a sudden change of mind engulfed the agent’s and brought him to the nearest hospital._

_Several police officers from the city of Philadelphia has stepped up to provide a report for his behaviour during the investigation of the Origami Killer, the first high-profile case he was given to. They painted him as a maniac who would “hound” on them, brandishing his status as an FBI agent “like a crown” and ordered them around “like peasants”. The authenticity of their reports are debatable at best, insulting at worst, but we have no doubt that his mental health had started to decline from that point._

_SUN COAST HOTEL AND CASINO INCIDENT_

_Jayden quietly dropped the Stevens case after his ambush with Tyler Miles and flew to Las Vegas for unknown motives. We dispatched Ryan Clayton—a CIA operative—to track him down on our behalf, as many of Jayden’s colleagues and his superiors fear for the life of the agent and the life of the people around him, taking into account his actions in the past twenty-four hours. From their perspective, they believed he simply needed medical attention and psychiatric help._

_Clayton connected himself with Las Vegas’s police department and emergency services to assist him with his widespread search. The public makes an average of one hundred calls to 911 every day, but two consecutive calls on May 15, 2013, caught the agent’s attention. These calls were made in the same place, only two minutes apart. First, a complaint about public disturbance and the second was for an ambulance dispatch. Following these calls, agent Jayden was found and admitted to Summerlin Medical Center. Clayton entered the scene of the breakdown to investigate. He acquired several eyewitness reports and the CCTV recordings involving Jayden._

_The cameras have captured Jayden running from his room speaking to himself. Then he flung his own body against the walls, bashing his head on hard surfaces and screaming for a man named Carter Blake. He quickly drew attention from the staff and the guests, but they were not able to seize or talk him down. He finally collapsed on the lobby, ending his violent breakdown, and a doctor on the scene declared him deceased._

##

Norman found himself waking up, with wires connected to his veins, tubes running through his nose and mouth and into his stomach and lungs. His awakening was not graceful as those other patients on the silver screen. He groaned, still groggy from the drugs they had been feeding him for how long? He had no fucking clue. He couldn’t move, but he tried to make every part of his body twitch. His right arm didn’t respond.

The nurse assigned to monitor his hourly activities came in and was taken back by his shuffling. She quickly notified the entire hospital staff. For the next few days, they conducted tests on him, changed his diet plans, gave him more or less of the amount of medicine he took during his sleep.

They had relayed a report of his status to the Bureau. The next day, the director of the FBI personally paid a visit to him. “You were dead.” These were the first things he said as he entered the room and hung his coat and hat on the rack.

“I am aware of that.” It was painful to speak, with so much hanging on his mouth, and when he hadn’t uttered a word for a long time. “I was loaded into an ambulance and brought to a hospital to be pronounced legally dead. But when we arrived there, I was breathing. Was that the story you released to the press?”

The director, Mr. Comey, made his place on the chair next to the bed. “Not exactly, son. We released a statement. They took it and made a run for it and blew it up. You were a miracle in their eyes.” He huffed. “First, you resigned from the biggest case we have ever tackled, the biggest assignment the world had trusted over us. It was a gamble to give it to you but you are without a doubt a wise choice, especially with the results you are bringing to us. Then you ran away to Las Vegas. You went insane. Lastly, you were in a coma for ten months. I am wondering what is going with you.”

Norman’s blinks were soft. “Sir, you must be aware of my psychological evaluation.”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Mr. Comey pressed his fingers against his forehead, massaging it. “ARI...has done a number on you. But I am disappointed that you lied in your examinations, and did not report your symptoms to our specialists, our doctors, and the very people who are developing the technology. We put your health over anything else, you know that.”

“I didn’t want to lose my job.”

“Well, in the end, it has cost your life _and_ your job.”

Norman leaned back. The director sighed. “You are one of the Bureau’s indispensable members. It has been quite a while to see such a brilliant mind in play. You had a _promising_ career ahead of you, Norman. I don’t want to let you go. It hurts me that I have to sign your retirement papers now.”

“I’m sorry, chief.”

Mr. Comey stood up and grabbed his jacket and his hat. “You’ve destroyed your ARI.”

“I did.”

“What does that mean to you?”

Norman didn’t respond right away. He tossed the question around for a bit. “I don’t know. I guess it binds me. And I didn’t like to be held down. It’s too compelling to me, too...seductive.”

“Do you regret being part of the program when it was first launched, Norman?”

“It was great while it lasted. It’s promising. It just...wasn't for me. Don’t look back on it, sir.”

“You never look back on things.” He opened the door. “I wish you good luck to your new life, agent.”

“Thank you.”

##

He was mostly alone during the next three months in the hospital. He had an old colleague come by once in a while, to drop him news from the outside world. Not the world described the newscasters and anchors in television, but _his_ world, where he thrived and lived and died. A world where he tried to reach out to the sun but his wings had burned for being so close to it and he fell to his doom.

Amir’s adopted daughter had arrived in America a few months ago and they moved to a quiet town in Vermont. He resigned from the FBI to lead a normal life with his new family, just him and the little girl, teaching her how to speak English and to adapt to her new environment, geared her for winter time.

Tyler Miles was heading the Forrest Stevens case, and they had made a major breakthrough after a decade of loops and spins and small victories under his care. They stumbled upon another network of terrorist that seemed control their capitalist world, but this new network’s influence reigned over the internet. Some sort of rivalling clans and cults were involved in this old FBI conspiracy. It was too crazy to comprehend in Norman’s still half-asleep mind, but he would let that stir in him.

His wife, Samantha Malone-Miles, pressed charges on Norman during his coma on the grounds of aggravated assault and was willing to wait for him to wake up before taking the case officially to court. Tyler quickly deflated the charges before it begun. He had not spoken to Norman ever since they last interacted in the construction site, and he never did reach out. Norman was too ashamed, too guilty to be the first one to establish a conversation, and the silence from Tyler’s end only brought about more insecurities in his mind.

If there was any indication that Tyler was still on his side, it was when after his recovery he—along with one agent who also used ARI and suffered its severe side effects—had decided to advocate against its use, by leaking its information and tech advances to the public, along with the list of its victims it had taken, including its recent one in the numbers, Norman Jayden. When they thought that ARI couldn’t make any more harm than it already had, Norman’s case was a demonstration of its psychological and mental extent of damage, that death was not the last stop in the road when it came to the worst case scenario. The media swiftly hounded on the technology’s positives and its negatives. The people had divided opinions on the matter, formed pro and anti groups, became a political, social, and moral matter. ARI was in the brink of being decommissioned, and the FBI was being charged with several civil lawsuits.

Despite visits from several people, his flower vase was left empty. He had received a bouquet from the hotel he was staying in Las Vegas, in the first month he was admitted, but that had long wilted and died. When news of his awakening spread, the country celebrated and showered him with praise and all their love, as his imminent death and resurrection were reported in the news since he was hailed as the hero of the Origami Killer case three years ago. But everyone moved on quickly, and he was now the past. Once in a while an acquaintance would drop a flower or two and ask about his mental health, provided words of support and encouragement. But they would vanish as quickly as they appeared. He didn’t mind. He never lingered in the lives of the people he knew, and neither did they to him. They all led the same lives after all. Norman was just one of those people who decided to slow down and stop and watch everyone go.

So the world continued to spin without Norman, although sometimes they came knocking on his door in the form of journalists and reporters who wished to hear his statement on the ARI scandal. When not faced with such obstacles in his quest for meditation and peace, he found himself constantly in his thoughts, but he was no longer interrupted by illusions and voices. He stared at the windows, the mirrors, and only found his reflection staring at himself. He spent most of his time in his dreams. He had never slept so well in years.

##

A letter, with words written precisely and angular.

_Mr. Jayden,_

_When I first heard from my wife about your recovery, I immediately picked up the pen and started to write this. I had thought of just sending you an email or ask for your other contact information, but I imagine life in the hospital is still as primitive as I remember when I was admitted as a patient for six months. An old fashion letter should cheer both of us, old fashion men, and I must admit that my mind becomes clearer when I have a pen with me. Madison will see that this will be brought to you._

_I have not properly thanked you for helping me save my son, Shaun Mars. He asked about you sometimes. Your presence on TV assures him, and when you stopped appearing, he prays that you would solve a big case again and come back to grace your presence in our living room and in our small talks. He considers you as a superhero, standing in the same shoes as Batman and Superman, although he has to constantly assure me that I, too, am a superhero and that I stood on a pedestal higher than all the heroes he knew combined. But the charm about you to him was that you were not constantly around him as me and Madison are, which creates a sense of wonder in him. You were shrouded in mystery, and he puzzled on about you, tried to figure you out._

_Of course, I am not jealous. In fact, I think such enthusiasm brings back the child in him. After all that he had just gone through, he needed that. So much was taken from him. In a degree, you have inspired him and kept him going. You provided some escape by keeping his mind preoccupied from his nightmares and his insecurities. Sure, you were a reminder of the past, but if he found comfort skirting close into memories that could possibly trigger him into remembering these traumatic events, I see at as an improvement. He becomes more at ease with himself._

_When your death broke into the news, Shaun went through the five stages of grief in an hour. Out of context and in hindsight it’s funny because he was twelve (my boy is thirteen now) but back then it was terrible to see him in such state. It's still terrible to me. We were quick to inform him about how you were simply clinically dead, and that didn’t prove anything all. Soon enough we knew you were simply in a coma. He got better, but he was still weighed down with the possibility that you may never wake up. I swear you are like a second father to him._

_Shaun wasn’t the only one who grieved in that dark hour, though. Your brief passing was like witnessing a beacon of light being snuffed out, and the world had been shrouded in pitch black darkness. To you, it sounds too much of an exaggeration, but that was the case for my family. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching for the past three years and from time to time I come back to the same place. No doubt that even the darkest corners can you pull you back into seeing a glimpse of the unknown, a glimmer of something that will make us stronger._

_I appreciated that you took upon my request to divert all media attention from us and by focusing them on you. That was the only time—the first and last time—we properly talked, not in our police-civilian relationship, but as regular, distraught men stepping away from the darkness and into the light. I didn’t want to be in the spotlight. After leaving my statement to the press and to the police, I wanted to make a quiet exit with my family. Madison sometimes thinks that it’s unfair that you get all the fanfare, but it was because I asked you to. You and me do not know each other well, but I know you are a humble man. I knew from the beginning that you were not after fame, and your concern for the wellbeing of my son has touched me. Granted, so did the entire police department, but when I was framed as a suspect, they threw it all out through the window by becoming more intent on trying to get me than finding out where my son was._

_We both have something in common now, other than we happen to be involved in my son’s case. I will take this opportunity for us to get together. Well, if I’m being really honest here, I would like to get to know my son’s hero. Please do contact me if you take my offer. I know very well that you are a busy man, and I understand if you have no time just to see me and my family. I still want to thank you, personally. You have no idea how much of an impact you have done to us. To me, particularly, even though we are near strangers, and I know only of you through interviews and anything that I could look up in the internet, through third-party writers and celebrities._

 

_Let me know if you are going to take my offer or not. I wish for your swift recovery._

_Ethan Mars_

##

Norman Jayden looked back on his life only twice.

A part of him didn’t want to see Ethan Mars. Some form of guilt still sat at the bottom of his heart, especially after realizing how skewered the state of his mind was during his investigation of the Origami Killer. God, that was a long, long time ago. At this point, he could never be sure if he really did hurt the man, when his head had long been damaged, his reality was altered to the point that his false memories were real to him. He wished not to be hailed as a hero, as the letter liked to think about him. Insecurity plague his thoughts, adding subtext in the words, reinterpreting Ethan’s genuine thanks into sarcastic scorn. Regardless of his vast and extensive knowledge of the workings of the human mind, and despite his sympathy for every other person that wasn’t an asshole like Carter Blake, he still couldn’t figure people out, especially when it came to their relationships with Norman. He read the letter twice and swallowed down all the added context and subtext.

Ethan was wrong about one thing, though. Norman had all the time in the world now. The day before his hospital release, he got in contact with him, arranged a time and place for them to see each other. Norman didn’t go back to his home, not yet. His right arm was encased around a sling, and while most of his wounds healed, his old scar still remained on his right cheek, not in the least faded. The nurse put a little bandage to cover it, and with a warning about the media guarding the exit to trap him, sent him off to the world again. From the doors of the hospital he fought his way through a dozen journalists waiting for him, commuted to the airport, and flew to the city of Philadelphia—went there as if it was just the local coffee shop in town—to meet up with Ethan.

The city’s weather was better than the last time Norman was there. Clear blue skies and trees budding pink blossoms before turning into green leaves. The ground was dry, potholes were covered in cement, the people were more cheery and alive. He drove through familiar locations, but he saw them in a new light. He was entering a different dimension completely different from the one he left long ago.

When he arrived at the Mars residence, Ethan was heading out. “I’m picking Shaun up from school. Come with me.”

They got into his car and started off. Norman was beginning to suspect that they were not heading straight to the school. They crossed the same roads, same landmarks, and once in a while they would swerve to a new territory, but they would repeat the cycle again. He looked at his watch. There was an hour before any middle school would let the kids go.

Ethan need not to say words because he was a very expressive person. Norman’s status as a former agent and a man of worldly experience probably threatened Mars’s intellectual capacity, because he seemed to try to look or say something smart. And each time he wanted to speak about something in particular, he stopped himself in fear that he would sound dumb, but the way his face configure itself as if he were actually saying what he wanted to say sent the message to Norman. One facial expression clearly meant _you look different_ , but Ethan probably thought that such sentiment should only be reserved for friends, and he seemed to think that they weren’t in that horizon, not yet. Norman reflected on it, though. He didn’t think Ethan meant about the sling and the fact that he wasn’t in a suit, even though he still dressed sharply since old habits die hard. Norman looked at himself in the side mirror of the vehicle. He was approaching his forties, and there was a little more colour in his face. His back was a little straighter, no longer was he burdened with a weigh of a ghost. His eyes more tired, but a bit cheery, a bit brighter. He felt more _sure_ about himself.

The questions were exchanged between the two, from small talk to branching out into the more meticulous questions concerning their own well-being, carefully prodding through the privacy of their lives, like strangers on a blind date. _How are you doing? How’s the family? Is Shaun okay? Are you okay? What are you doing and what are you going to do now?_

Both of them answered tentatively to their questions for each other. Norman wanted to rest his right cheek on his fist, he had the itch of doing it, but his right arm wasn’t available for any of his commands and impulses. He simply stared at the streets passing by. He spotted a police officer on a beat, and his heart sank. Memories of Carter terrorizing people with his unbalanced anger came back into him and it left him with his throat dry.

“Ethan,” he started.

“Norman.”

“About the time in the police station, when you got arrested....”

“What about it?” Ethan paused. “Oh. Well, I forgot to thank you for that one too. I really didn’t know what to say when you let me go.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Norman pressed his forehead on the glass. “I...I’m sorry.”

Ethan remained silent. Such inaction it struck a chord in Norman’s mind, only confirmed his deepest fears. “For what?” Ethan finally asked.

Norman closed his eyes and drew a shaky breath. He simply waited, let the atmosphere answer for him.

Ethan inhaled sharply. “From the way you weigh your words, whatever it is you’re apologizing for feels heavy. And you’re never going to rest until I do or say something.” They stopped at a red light. “I’m going to ease up your burden. You helped me, Norman, that’s what I’ve always thought and believed. If there’s something you think you did was wrong, it’s not your fault. It’s all in the past now.” Green light, and they turned into a new road. “You may think that I am too forgiving, but forgiveness is part of the road to recovery. We both should know that.”

“You don’t always have to forgive for the sake of ourselves. Some actions are just...past the point of forgiveness. We all have the right to be angry towards the end.”

“I don’t want to feed myself with anger my entire life. I’ll never get over the things that happened to us. But...but I don’t want anything more toxic. I just want to forget. And from the looks of it, I don’t think you need forgiveness from me. You need to ask yourself that.”

They both fell silent. Ethan tapped his forefinger on the wheel. “I’d like for you to tell me what happened to you,” he said, after a while. “You were dragged into the middle of that ARI scandal if I recall correctly. I am not exactly trusting whatever some journalist sensationalize in the news to rouse the public. No offence to Madison’s line of work. But I want to hear it from you. At least, you owe me that.”

“Alright.” The pressure from Norman’s chest was slowly unwinding. His shoulders were still rigid but he felt himself loosen his grip of the unbearable. “I owe you that.”

On another red light, they slowed down to a stop in front of a multicultural centre. They were to play a free movie later that night: _It’s A Wonderful Life._

“You know, you’re wrong about me being dragged into that fiasco.” Norman found himself talking again. “I willingly put myself in that place. I’m not....exactly the most responsible person for myself, contrary to your belief. Right now, I barely have a hold on what I’ve got. Like the clothes on my back, my home—I don’t even _know_ if I have a _home_ to come back to.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, stopped himself from thinking any further. “Makes me wonder if I’ll ever have a happy ending.”

All this time, Ethan had kept his eyes on the road. After a reflective silence, he glanced at him. “You’re getting there.”

Norman cracked a smile and met his friend’s gaze, and he was taken back by the warmth behind those eyes. Ethan was radiant, not like the man he knew three years ago: not exactly broken, but bent against his strength, weathered and beaten to the ground. Now he stood on his two feet, gathered everything that was shattered, and put it all back together.

The difference between them was apparent even to the eyes of outsiders: Ethan Mars was complete and Norman Jayden was in pieces.

“Yeah,” Norman said. His polite smile turned into a broken, but loving one. Who was he to doubt Ethan’s judgment in his current outlook on life? “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked away. His vision got a little watery.

They stopped downtown for a moment to grab coffee for themselves and a box of donuts for Shaun before waiting in the school’s parking lot. While leaning against the car, they took sips of their drinks and talked, feeling young even though Ethan’s lower back was aching and Norman was getting a headache from the sun bearing down on them too cruelly. They never heard the bell ring, and the kids just piled out through the front and side doors of the school. When Shaun came out, Ethan waved to catch his son’s attention.

The boy was taller, looked a little bit more like his father. His face lost its round childish shape in favour of a more angular one. He looked a slightly tense, like he didn’t want to be embarrassed that he was being picked up, couldn’t exert his newly-founded independence as opposed to the kids his age. But once he figured out that Ethan was not alone, that Norman was standing side-by-side, he was half-sprinting, eyes shining with wonder and excitement.

##

Katherine’s care had been transferred to the landlady of the apartment building. The mom and the little girl had moved two months into Norman’s comatose period. They left no word for him.

But he did have a home to come back to. With Katherine back in his left arm, he and the landlady went up to his old apartment. Norman still had the key to his home, but he let his companion open the door for him. His hands were too full anyway.

All his furniture had been draped with sheets, and dust had gathered, placing another layer over them. Stacks of boxes were placed on all the corners of the room, some smaller ones on top of shelves, stacked upon each other. The contents of the boxes were marked on their face sides. Books, clothes, miscellany. The walls and shelves were bare and pale, sunlight passed through the curtainless windows. All this was wrapped up by a sense of loneliness.

“We didn’t do this,” the landlady said behind him.

He looked at her. “Who did?”

She pointed at the dining table on the far right corner of the apartment. As he advanced towards it, the cat jumped out of his arm and made a detour to his kitchen.

An envelope graced the bare surface of his table. Written on the front of the envelope: _Norman_ , in cursive. He opened it slowly and rather gingerly with his only available hand. He recognized the handwriting, even after so many years. His mother always wrote his name that way, never changed at all.

During his coma, his family ghosted his home, fiddled with the relics of his current life, and left without a trace of evidence of their existence except for the letter. He wondered what they had thought about how he had arranged his ties, his socks, his collection of vinyl. They walked on his floor with dirt under their shoes trailing behind them, and yet they swept it all up on their way out. They haunted this place, just as Carter Blake had haunted his mind.

He inhaled sharply and fought back the urge to weep. He didn’t need to ask himself or anyone why they had come here instead of coming to him directly. He knew very well why. He could hear their voices in the room he stood on, heard the conversations that transpired between persons, what they said about him, what they thought about him. He wanted to cover his ears, tried to tell them to stop. Was this still the side effects of his illness, or merely the drive of his imagination? All his sanctuaries had been tainted, but this was how showed they to him they still cared, despite his past sins. Of course, they still cared.

He dispelled all these thoughts. No more dwelling in the past, it was time to move on. Norman covered his face with the letter and smiled ironically to himself. “I’m losing it.”

* * *

THE END 

**Author's Note:**

> This work has no beta-reader and has been roughly edited by me, so in the near future I might make major overhauls when it comes to redundant and awkward sentences and paragraphs, and minor corrections when it comes to grammar. But in any case, comments and criticism are always appreciated. If you see an unfinished sentence, point it out for me. Thank you for reading Ghost In The Machine, a Heavy Rain fic written in 2016.


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